I LOVE My Band

"Blythe was grateful the hamster had dedicated it's life to fashion"

Day 15 Post-Op


How has the band changed me or my life?


I want to focus on the positives today. I feel that some of my latest posts have been quite self-absorbed and focusing on the negative aspects of my life and behaviours. I woke up this morning and simply felt, ‘on top of the world’ and I wanted to think about why that was.


Well even though I have only had the band fitted for a fortnight, have not had any fills and won’t be getting my first fill for another 10 weeks, I still feel that having the band is helping me. In what ways, I hear you cry. Well I am aware that I do not have any physical restriction for my eating and my appetite, both my physical and my head hunger returned very quickly. I’d say I was actually craving food to eat within 24 hours – this being totally in my head and not a physical hunger. My physical pangs returned about 5 days ago. My stomach rumbles and I am feeling the physical need to eat. So, in that case, why or how can the band have possibly helped me? Here’s what I think.


Hope – This may seem like a weird one but the band has given me hope. Hope to succeed. As I’ve said before I am a serial dieter, my weight yoyos faster than a ride at Alton Towers. It also yoyos by both small (a stone) and significant (5 stone) amounts of weight. It is never maintained. Whereas I have always felt that this was a shameful thing, I am starting to see things differently. As you are well aware I have spent my time, certainly over the past 3 years, doing nothing but eating, planning to eat, preparing the food and being the most horrendous couch potato. My exercise had gone down to virtually zero. Now that I’m not doing all my binge / food related activities I have MUCH, MUCH more time on my hands. I just felt I needed to explain this before sharing with you what I have done :) I have sat down and worked out, to the best of my ability, just how much weight I have lost and gained over the past 20 years. Bear in mind this is only the significant diet plans that I can recall, I will have gone up and down 10lbs to a stone several times in between. As I cannot recall how many of those there are accurately, I have not included them. If I had, the figures would be even more shocking. Now, you may wonder how it is I can remember all of this but, believe me, it is etched in my memory. I realise that the way I recall past events is by relating them to how much I weighed at the time. For example, I can recall with more or less absolute accuracy how much I have weighed every Christmas since I was 13. Leaving school, exam time, going to Uni, attending posh balls, every time I joined a slimming club, the gym or a fitness campaign, every boyfriend, house move and job interview I have been to – they are all remembered in association with what I looked like and how much I weighed. God, that’s terrible. Until now, I don’t think I realised how deeply ingrained this thinking and behaviour was.


So in the past 20 years the absolute minimum weight I have lost, in total, is: 33 stone. The absolute minimum that I have gained, in total, in this time, is: 38 and a half stone. That means that if I had only ever gained and had never lost weight, I would have started at 11 stone and would now be 49 and a half stone. On the other hand, if I had only ever lost weight – well I’d be a pile of dusty old bones by now.


The point to this is that, although you could look at this as me being a failure at losing weight and a success at gaining weight, I’m not thinking about it like that. In my mind I have turned this around. What this actually shows is that I am a bloody good dieter. I can diet. If I hadn’t dieted I would probably be dead by now from an obesity related illness. The thing that I do struggle with is weight maintenance. When I think of it like that then it gives me hope. The band is giving me hope. I can diet and the band can help me when I stray from the path. It will help me to maintain my weight loss if I follow the ‘bandster rules’. For the past 3 years I have felt so unmotivated and powerless to try and lose weight. I have had such half-arsed attempts that last 2 or 3 weeks before I pile it all back on again. I think part of the reason for this is that I knew what the result would be. It would be to regain the weight and then some. Knowing that, I’m not surprised I lost my motivation.


So I have genuine hope at the moment. I think that I have done enough research and read enough posts on the forums to understand that having the band fitted is only half of the battle. If I only rely on the band to lose weight then I will fail. I am aware that it is possible to ‘eat around’ the band by consuming large amounts of ‘contraband’ such as Ben & Jerry’s or Hagen Daaz. I know that chocolate will slip through the band. I am aware that if I rely solely on the band then I will start to push the boundaries with it. I’ll end up with a dilated oesophagus or band slippage. If I keep up my side of the deal then the band will hopefully keep up its side. If I learn how to use the band then I will feel full and not feel deprived. If I couple this with a sensible, calorie controlled, fresh, healthy diet and exercise regime I cannot fail. I may not lose weight as quickly as I would secretly like to. After all, if someone invented a pill that would make me lose all of my excess weight over night but would reduce my life span by 20 years, I would take it in a heartbeat. I will always want to weigh less and less on a daily basis. This time I am aware that if I take it slowly and surely, then in 2 years time I will be at my goal. I will be 35 years old. I will still be young enough to try for children. I feel hopeful for my future for the first time in years. (I’ll probably be run over by a bus tomorrow, lol).


The other positives that are happening at the moment, even in this short space of time are:


Sleep: I am sleeping so well. I can not believe it. When my head hits the pillow I am out like a light and I don’t wake up at all in the night. It’s so strange. Normally I wake up a couple of times during the night, I may get up and have a wee, wander into the spare room to look at the clock, stroke the cat (who will have followed me to the loo) and then toss and turn in bed for a while. Then, in the morning I’ll feel exhausted, press snooze a zillion times, get out of bed at the very last minute, rush around like a demented women, feel p***ed off the whole way to work as I race to get there, stop off at the newsagents (as I won’t have had time to prepare anything for the day) buy a couple of packets of crisps and cereal bar / chocolate bar, eat them before my colleagues arrive and then wonder why I feel stressed, bad tempered and thoroughly knackered. This week? The night before I have made my smoothies and packed my 2 servings of soup all ready to picked-up out of the fridge. I have been awake around 5 minutes before the alarm has gone off, I’m up out of bed, showered and dressed. I’ve even bothered to put a bit of make up on, something that would have been unheard of normally. I have been at work by 7.45am!! (I know its half term which helps). Even Jack Spratt can’t believe the change in me… he used to have to ring me from his work to make sure I’d gotten out of bed. Now I’m ready and out before him. I am amazed.


Food cravings: As you know, I am treating my month of liquids-only as a bit of a ‘cold-turkey’ in an effort to break my daily bingeing cycle. I have also been eating, almost exclusively, fresh foods. Now this is mainly because I detest tinned or package soups. For me, there is nothing tastier now than a bowl of homemade fresh soup. Strangely, actually making the soup is also now something that I really look forward to doing. I stick the radio on and pretend I am on the telly. Delia has nothing on me at the moment. I am also making my own smoothies, with the only processed ingredient being the low fat yogurt. I haven’t found a healthier one yet. Well, to be fair, I haven’t actually tried very hard :)


Now, I am aware that I am probably beginning to sound like an evangelist but I am so excited by this that I just want to share it. I am the first to admit that ‘Dr’ Gillian McKeith is a bully, humiliates her programme’s participants (as if the daily humiliations that come with being obese aren’t enough) and comes across, generally, as a nasty piece of work. However, despite her outrageously inaccurate pseudo-scientific quackery, the evil little stick insect may just be onto something. Whilst I’d have never believed that removing processed foods from my diet would make me feel so good, my body is telling me differently. Despite my physical hunger pangs appearing, my head hunger is definitely on the decline this week. Yes, I have had days when I have had an extra 1, 2 or 3 bowls of soup. But, they’re bowls of soup for pity’s sake. I am not beating myself up over it. My sense of perspective seems to be a little more rational. And I feel brilliant. I am not craving any potatoes, cheese, salad creams, b-b-q sauce, bread, sweets, pizza or curries. In every other diet I have done in the past, I have relied heavily on convenience foods. Yes, I may have bulked them out with vegetables, but processed foods were still featuring in my diet on a daily basis. I would choose ready meals, low-fat versions of everything (which would be higher in sugar and sweeteners), processed pasta salads and sandwiches. Every diet was broken when my cravings for ‘naughty food’ became too overwhelming. I’m aware that the more sugar, refined carbohydrates and sweeteners you consume the more your body craves due to the insulin imbalances but I don’t think I ever really believed it before. I am really looking forward to my smoothies and my soups, the best part being, I’m not feeling guilty about eating. It may be hard work but I am endeavouring to keep on with my fresh ingredients diet – even when I am back on solids.

"The food police was busy stating the bleedin' obvious - as usual"

My Skin: I have suffered from acne since I was 22. I was blemish free throughout my teens. Had my gall-bladder out, put on 5 stone – lost 3 of it and moved to London all within 18 months. Once in London I developed really angry acne. I blamed it on the water. I was living on processed junk, drinking plenty of beer and generally burning the candle at both ends (and sometimes in the middle as well!). I moved back from London 5 years ago and the acne remained. It always diminished when I lost weight and becomes worse the heavier I am. Last year I was diagnosed with Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome. I realise now that I have had it for about 12 years. PCOS became another method of denial with my over-eating. “No wonder I can’t lose weight, I have PCOS, oh well I might as well have another 10 jacket spuds as I won’t lose weight anyway”. Anyway, since starting the pre-op and post band, my acne has more or less disappeared. 1 month of eating solely fresh foods and my complexion looks clearer than it has done in years.

Medications: Well by January this year I was taking 2 different blood pressure and diabetes medications as well as iron supplements as I was so anaemic. I’d had a very, very heavy period that had lasted more or less a whole year – give or take a few days break. I felt physically awful. Despite all the medications, my blood pressure was still high and my blood sugars weren’t coming down any lower than 15. Just prior to the band, I couldn’t get my tablets changed over into liquid form. As I was told not to take tablets for 12 months (!) I was basically stuffed. I tried to take them by crushing them but they were so vile that I immediately retched. Given that retching / vomiting are probably the worst things to do after being banded, I felt I had no choice but to stop taking them. I have had my BP monitored daily by my colleagues and it is lower than ever. And my blood sugars? Well, they have remained at a steady 5-7. I wasn’t able to get them lower than 10 with all the bloody meds! I just find it astounding. Now, I don’t recommend anyone stopping their medications and, I know that I will need a background dose of Metformin for the PCOS, but I am now, for all intents and purposes, a diet controlled diabetic.


So in just 2 weeks I am already noticing massive changes. Yes, I am losing weight but the health benefits are the things that are motivating me more at the moment. Whether I would have gotten the same benefits from simply changing my eating, I don’t know. What I do know is that the band is helping me to remain focused and to have an optimistic outlook about my ability to maintain any weight lost and about my future.


Now, that can’t be bad, can it?